My answer is, ‘when it works’

A question I like to ask when introducing people to new technologies is “Would you consider your chair a technology?” (It works best when they’re sat on an old chair). The most common answer is either ‘no’ or that disgruntled-where’s-the-door-type-face. Regardless, your chair was once designed, the person who made it sat on 100 failures before his posterior was being cushioned by another round of chair developments. Those failures, were in part, technology.

When that chair went to the public it might have been as an icon of modern times. Think of plastic injection (chairs dominated the plastics industry for a while) and how many chairs could be made and how quickly. You would only want to do this once they are really, really good. At some point that technology, the new concept, went mainstream. It’s not easy to say when, where or even why it happened – but your bum is grateful for it. To you, it’s just a chair, and that’s if you even bother to register such a thing. Most of the things around you were at some point in their lives a technology.

So what’s technology? Stuff that does not work? Yes, kind of.

Moodle is a technology, we know it works well enough, but it’s got a lot of things to improve. A pencil is not technology, they work, they’re good, maybe a little dated but you can’t alienate someone with a pencil, not quite yet (kids still love them). A teenager might shoot you a wonky face but you’re otherwise OK. What about chalk? What does chalk need to work? A blackboard? Would a youth want to use chalk? Maybe, maybe not.

Where this is heading is to say that technology are the things we’re experimenting with, before they go mainstream. People have been needed to act as technology filters for many years, starting with ‘this stone good, this stone bad’ & recommendations/trial & error/experience/developments from that point on. This filter helped reduce the information about the world to provide selections for people. This is what we do in E-Learning Environments, to some extent. But we also need to be informed of which rock to recommend.

One area we can choose to follow is the NMC Horizon Reports, described as “an unbiased source of information that helps education leaders, trustees, policy makers, and others easily understand the impact of key emerging technologies on education, and when they are likely to enter mainstream use.” These reports have been in print for 11 years to analyse technologies and predict short, medium and long-term technologies or disruptive innovations that educators and other such folk should be aware of. It’s worth noting that when you’re always looking forward at new technologies (aka shiny things) it’s sometimes harder to look back. When in fact, a review of the past often bring a clearer view of the future – or at least lessons to learn from past experiences.

For one reason or another, I decided to compile a list of the technologies featured in the Horizon reports and see if there were any trends in predicted technologies that are no longer ‘technology’. I found six out of 32 technologies that could be considered either no longer technologies, or have arrived to a point where a majority of people may consider them as ‘normal things’, not necessarily ‘new shiny things’ and they’re used in education. I think with the six, I may have been generous – comments welcome.

Here’s a breakdown:

Grassroots video (2008, short-term)

User-created content (2007, short-term)

Social networking (2007, short-term, also 2005 as long-term)

Online learning (2005, short-term)

Wireless (2005, short-term)

Searching (2005, short-term)

These six items have graduated from the Technology Academy, made it in the real world and are embedded into [UCL’s] education. When looking at the year of prediction and the time-frame they were estimated to ‘arrive’ in the world it gives a boost to the predictions from the Horizon reports. Since then they have all disappeared from the annual reports. In my view (don’t expect much more) this means they have landed, delivered their payload and blended into education as fairly normal things. Between 2005 to 2008 the predictions might have been easier to do or there was a point in technology where what came out become mainstream.

Here’s the rest:

Disrupter / Year

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

Massive open online courses

Short

Wearable technology

Long

Mobile computing & apps

Short

Short

Short

Short

Medium

Medium

Open content

Short

Augmented reality

Medium

Medium

Long

Long

Long

Electronic books

Short

Medium

Gesture-based computing

Long

Long

Long

Medium

Data analysis and learning analytics

Medium

Medium

Long

Long

Game-based learning

Medium

Medium

Medium

Long

Medium

Medium

Tablet computing

Short

Short

Internet of Things

Long

Long

Long

Cloud computing

Short

Geo-everything

Medium

Personal web

Medium

Semantic aware applications

Long

Long

Colloration webs

Short

Mobile broadband

Medium

Data mashups

Medium

Collective intelligence

Long

Social operating systems

Long

Virtual worlds

Medium

Publication platforms

Long

Social computing

Short

Personal broadcasting

Short

Scalable vector graphics

Short

Rapid prototyping

Long

Medium

As you can see, it’s a bit messy. Many of these technologies, regardless of prediction, never really took off in mainstream education. The most interesting ones were either mega-hyped or echo throughout the years. It’s hard to invest in something like game-based learning as it appears to remain an unpredictable technology for many years. The same can be said for mobile computing and apps, augmented reality, gesture-based computing, internet of things and rapid prototyping. Others seem too brief to know how to respond. I suspect technologies such as open content, cloud computing, collaboration webs, social computing, personal broadcasting and scalable vector graphics may have ignited some as ‘the next best thing’ and then fizzled out before hitting mainstream. Before I get flamed, it’s obvious that some of these things fit into niche areas; and many would argue they are all deployed in some state or another – but I am going for a general view here.

Predicting the unpredictable

Back to my original point is to say that in education, technologies remain as such until they’re used so naturally people see them as a way of life. They’ve come and stayed, maybe no-one even noticed. If you found a student posted a video to a Facebook group then you’ve just seen a few million years of embedded technology all sloshed together in a 1 minute capture. After this all you’re wondering is why they have a weird haircut. That’s embedded technology, working as ‘things’ to you and I.

What’s next?

Probably a lot more new things that don’t work. This is OK, everyone adopts new things at different rates, and this is one of the most fascinating parts. I’ll have to pick that up another time, but it’s all very splendid. I hope MNC keep writing their reports, I want to keep analysing them, I hope they don’t mind…